Various types of side wheel luggage or similar carriers for bicycles have been proposed. Stiff wire baskets have the disadvantage that they project outwardly even if only partially loaded, are difficult to attach, and disturb the balance of the bicycle. Much more suitable, and in actual practice much easier to use are limp bags made of plastic, nylon or the like, secured to a frame typically of wire construction, the frame, in turn, being attached to the wheel fork of the bicycle. One attachment point, usually, is on, or adjacent the wheel axle, for example at an attachment point also provided to attach struts for mud guards or fenders; the other attachment, typically, is by means of a bracket clamped to the wheel fork of the bicycle.
Lateral front wheel luggage carrier frames of this type, as known, usually have a support strut arrangement, one for each side adjacent the front wheel of the bicycle, which is usually formed of a wire of circular cross section, commonly known as a round wire. The frame is bent into an equilateral trapeze. The free ends of the trapeze are welded together at the parallel smaller base thereof. The result will be two downwardly converging, essentially vertically extending struts or support elements which are connected by two horizontal connecting elements. One each of these frames is located at either side of the wheel.
The round wire forming the lower connecting element or cross portion is bent upward at the point of transition between the lower cross portion and the rear, vertically extending strut and follows this strut as far as about its middle. At this point, the second round wire is bent at at right angles toward the corner of the trapeze opposite this vertical strut, and from there the round wire follows along the upper cross portion. The result is that the rear vertical strut is reinforced by being additionally supported against the opposite corner.
This strut arrangement is attached at two points: first, on the transverse reinforcement strut in the vicinity of the front wheel axle, that is, in the area of the end portion of the fork, and second, on the rear end of the upper cross portion at the point where it extends past the associated leg of the front wheel fork of the bicycle. At this point, a securing screw passes through a corresponding bore in the transverse connecting portion, which is in alignment with an associated bore in the fork.
Securing the struts in this manner, however, dictates that the geometry of the side luggage carrier must be matched exactly to the shape of the front wheel fork, which as a rule means retrofitting of the luggage carrier is possible only in exceptional cases. If the shape of the fork and the shape of the side luggage carrier do not match, either it is impossible to secure the carrier, or else when the carrier is installed the upper cross portion will not extend horizontally, which means that the pocket, or pannier, secured to it will continually slip.
Furthermore, the known side luggage carrier is not sufficiently resistant to vibration or oscillation during the ride, because the upper and lower attachment points are in the immediate vicinity of the rear vertically extending strut, producing the effect of a correspondingly long lever arm for the front end of the side luggage carrier; this favors front end vibrations that are vertical to a plane that intersects the front axle at right angles. In the known side luggage carrier, an attempt is made to reduce this tendency toward vibrating by attaching the second round wire, which forms the transverse strut, to the inside of the fork.
This second wire, which must be matched exactly in contour to the wire that is bent into a trapeze, substantially increases the cost of manufacture, especially since, in order to fulfill its function, the second wire must be welded at many points to the round wire that is bent into the trapeze.